1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surface treatment apparatus and this surface treatment apparatus which easily and efficiently gives desired surface qualities to an image print obtained by various kinds of image recording methods, and to an image recording apparatus provided with this surface treatment apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, images have been formed by various methods such as silver halide photography, heat developing, inkjet recording, thermosensitive recording and electrophotography. In the prior art, techniques for controlling the gloss of image prints obtained by these various methods were not well-known.
However, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 05-053288 discloses a photographic apparatus which, in addition to a processor part which produces a printed photograph by developing a printing paper which has been bake-exposed, also comprises a drying part and surface texture treatment part to finish the printed photograph. The surface texture treatment part of this photographic apparatus comprises a pressure roller having surface depressions and protrusions which forms a predetermined surface texture on the printed photograph surface, and a shift mechanism which sets this pressure roller in a state where it can be pressed against the printed photograph. As a result, printed photographs having a desired surface texture can easily be obtained without replacing printing papers or interrupting the bake-exposure.
However, the surface texture treatment part in this photographic apparatus described in the aforesaid JP-A No. 05-053288 had a construction wherein the printed photograph surface was pressed by a pressure roller having a desired transfer roughness, and the depressions and protrusions on the pressure roller surface were transferred to the printed photograph. The surface texture treatment part of this photographic apparatus was adapted for use only with silver halide photographic sheets. Also, to obtain particular surface textures, it was necessary to provide a number of rollers having surface roughness for each texture, so in practice only about 1 to 3 surface textures could be realized. Therefore, according to JP-A No. 05-053288, only one type of treatment could be performed, there was no systematic generality, and performance was unsatisfactory from the viewpoints of working efficiency and energy efficiency. In the aforesaid JP-A No. 05-053288, the image recording layer is surface-treated by applying heat and pressure, but there is no mention of the surface treatment of the thermoplastic resin layer and even if the surface treatment of only the image recording layer surface is performed, the surface (interface) depression-and-protrusion shape pattern of the thermoplastic resin layer situated underneath may affect the image recording layer surface due to a time-dependent variation, so a desired depression-and-protrusion shape pattern is not obtained.
In JP-A No. 2001-053943, an image recording system was proposed wherein color information and gloss information are acquired from an image, and image recording is performed on a recording medium based on these two types of image information. Image recording is performed by converting gloss information or non-gloss information into the thermal energy of a thermosensitive head.
In the aforesaid JP-A No. 05-053288 and JP-A No. 2001-053943, the image recording layer is surface-treated by applying heat and pressure, but there is no mention of the surface treatment of the thermoplastic resin layer and even if the surface treatment of only the image recording layer surface is performed, if the surface (interface) depression-and-protrusion shape pattern of the thermoplastic resin layer situated underneath is not formed in a desired depression-and-protrusion pattern, it may affect the image recording layer surface due to a time-dependent variation, so a desired depression-and-protrusion shape pattern is not obtained.
Moreover, if a contact member is released from the sheet at high temperature, the depression-and-protrusion pattern on the contact member transferred to the thermoplastic resin layer and image-forming layer sometimes produced an undesirable plastic deformation due to external factors. Moreover, if a surface coating layer (transparent clear layer) is provided to improve the gloss as described in the aforesaid JP-A No. 2001-053943, it led to higher costs. Moreover, in the aforesaid related art, there is no mention of forming desired surface qualities in sheet units or within one sheet by adjusting at least one of pressure and temperature, so this was difficult to realize.
On the other hand, an electrophotography printing apparatus comprising a thickness detection unit to detect the thickness of a recording material, and a gloss detection unit to detect the surface gloss of the recording material, wherein the fixing conditions of a fixing apparatus are varied according to the output values of these units, has been proposed (JP-A No. No. 07-311506). However, in this case, an image print is not separated after fully cooling after fixing, so surface gloss was insufficient. Moreover, when this was applied to the photographic print of a silver halide photograph, blisters occur in the photograph print.
Therefore, a surface treatment apparatus or image recording apparatus which can perform a suitable surface treatment according to the kind of image print or paper, and can easily obtain an image having a desired glossiness, is not yet known.
Objects and Advantages
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a surface treatment apparatus which can efficiently impart desired surface qualities to the image print obtained by various kinds of image recording methods, and an image recording apparatus comprising this surface treatment apparatus which can easily form an image having different surface qualities in part or in whole.